Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

In a Galaxy Far Far Away

Burning Chrome by William Gibson

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William Gibson’s Burning Chrome is a collection of 12 science fiction short stories that were written in the late 70s and early 80s and have been published together.  I would almost certainly never have picked up this book on my own- it joined my book collection after being abandoned by an old roommate, who had herself picked it for a college Science Fiction Literature class (which hints at how long this book has been knocking around my apartment).  Despite this not being my usual jam, […]

Drop-kick That Magic Lamp into Mount Doom

The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin (editors)

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Short story collections are like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates: you have to gnaw some nuts and chews to eventually find that chocolate truffle. That said, The Djinn Falls in Love is phenomenal. Six of the twenty-one stories are among the best short stories I have read. Ever. (Jhumpa Lahiri, I’m sorry to report that you’ve been bumped.)  The editors’s international ensemble of authors clearly did their research, populating their confident tales with every manner of djinn, jinn, and genie. Some lie in wait in […]

“High heels on the mossy path. Tippity-tap. Toddle on.”

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Hilary Mantel, twice winner of the Man Booker Prize, released a collection of short stories – titled The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher and other stories –  in 2014 and I have finally finished the compilation. This collection peruses a host of difficult topics; misogyny, culture shock, adultery,  alternate realities and much more. While the subject matter is different across each story there are similarities that occur throughout the collection; Mantel has a great eye for the minutiae  of suburban life, the dreck of urban reality […]

There will be no June 27th this year. . .

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  Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery is a short story that stretches just a dozen pages, but those twelve pages have helped to define what horror writing should be ever since. First published in the New Yorker in 1948 to unprecedented public reaction, the Lottery has become a classic. A seemingly innocent town square gathering, a tradition that happens each and every year in each and every town across the country. Herd mentality, mob rule, crowd psychology – call it what you will, but blindly following […]

It’s always hard for me to say if I love or hate a book of short stories.

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  Kevin Wilson’s collection of eleven short stories was my first time reading him, and it turned out to be one of those books that I’d recommend to someone but I wouldn’t really want to read any of his other stuff. It’s impossible to generalize with how I felt about these stories, so I’ll review each one briefly. Grand Stand-In: Wilson started strong with this one, which was hands down my favorite story in the series. An agency hires out stand-in grandparents for a variety […]



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